Tuesday, 23 April 2024: As Jetstar celebrates its 20th birthday, the airline has again demonstrated it has entered a new era of greater reliability.
More than 80 per cent of Jetstar's domestic flights arrived on time and 78.3 per cent departed on schedule in March, while its cancellation rate dropped to 1.5 per cent.
It's the low-cost carrier's lowest cancellation rate in almost five years, excluding COVID restriction periods when flying levels were considerably lower, and the highest on time arrival rate in more than two years.
Further illustrating the low-cost carrier's reliability, 96.4 per cent of flights arrived within half an hour of schedule in March.
During the month Jetstar operated over 7200 flights serving more than 20 destinations across its Australian domestic network.
Qantas, which includes Qantas and QantasLink, also had a strong performance in March with 78.2 per cent of its flights departing on time.
Outperforming main competitor
It's the fifth consecutive month that Jetstar has outperformed its main domestic rival for on time arrivals and lowest cancellations. Its competitor recorded an on-time arrival rate of 75.4 per cent with 2.8 per cent of flights cancelled during the month.
Investments in reliability
The strong result follows improvements right across the airline from hiring more than 1000 new team members, bringing forward check-in and bag drop times, and appointing dedicated on time performance managers at key ports.
The airline's twelfth new Airbus A321neo LR aircraft is set to arrive next month as part of a major investment in new more reliable, fuel efficient and quieter aircraft as Jetstar continues to expand its network across Australia and Asia-Pacific.
So far in April, Jetstar's strong performance has continued despite some operational challenges including disruptions caused by storms in Sydney early in the month.
Jetstar's Chief Operating Officer, Matt Franzi:
"While these are strong results, we remain focused on further improving our operations and delivering a safe and reliable service for our customers every time they fly with us.
"We've been working incredibly hard in recent months to better prepare for when things don't go to plan, and it shows in these latest performance figures.
"Bad weather, air traffic control restrictions and unexpected aircraft maintenance can all cause problems with getting flights away on time, so the job is never done for our teams."
